Earlier this year I was critical of the quality of podcasts. I’d have to say that they have improved, but not the way I expected. Better quality, shorter podcasts are out, but they’re not coming from the new podcasting blogger beatniks. They are coming from some of the oldest names in content.
Its no longer news that the heavies are jumping on podcasting. What I think is a lost opportunity is that grass-roots podcasting hasn’t taken any content lessons from the big boys. I listen to two podcasts daily as I drive to work: The Wall Street Journal tech stocks update and the CNN update. Both are between one and five minutes, both are high production quality and keep me informed without wasting my time.
You could say that this fast commercialization of podcasting is a travesty, but the only travesty is if the indies fail to improve their product. Podcasting is still equal-access. There are extremely low barriers to entry and universal access to listeners. So there’s really nothing to complain about, except all that boring chatter in the podcastsphere.
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August 8th, 2005 at 1:23 am
[...] letes a very successful Blogathon 2005. Michael Heilemann reviews Land of the Dead (2005). Brian states that independent podcasts still fall short of the high quality and short len [...]